User menu

Dem Rep: Thanks to Obamacare, You Can Now Cook Dinner or Retire

The spin machine is in full swing to save Obamacare

Sunday on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Representative Keith Ellison (D-Mn) sparred with Representative Tom Cole (R-Ok) over the Congressional Budget Office report which stated that Obamacare will reduce full-time employment by over 2 million jobs by 2024.

Rep. Ellison said this reduction in hours might allow for parents to come home and cook dinner rather than ordering take out. Amazingly, he also said, "People are going to be able to retire" and "start new businesses." Rep. Cole called this out for what it is -- "great spin."

Here is the conversation:

Cole: What the CBO report does say is that we're going to lose 1-2% of hours worked because of this. And, you know, you can argue that's a good thing -- I've heard that argument; give people some choices and I have no doubt in some cases it is. But discouraging work is not something we need to be doing right now. Making our economy marginally less productive -- not a good thing. It's not like this is the only flaw in Obamacare. We've got a raft of them to talk about.

Ellison: What the Congressional Budget Office is saying is that we're going to discourage kids from having to have latch key. We're going to have parents be able to come home working reasonable hours. People are going to be able to retire. People might be able to actually cook dinner rather than have to order and get some takeout. I mean, the fact is that if Americans can have more choices to open up a new business they've been wanting to start, this is a good thing…The fact of the matter is, we need a better work-life balance. Ask a working mother, OK, if she could use a few more hours in the day to take care of her family. That's what's really going on.

Cole: It's great spin, but I don't think it's going to work. [laughs] Good luck.